MLB Origins Committee

In March 2011, Major League Baseball established an accomplished panel of 12 experts and historians that will seek to determine the facts of baseball's beginnings and its evolution. The Committee will compile and evaluate information that pertains to the game's founding and its growth.

Following the study period, the panel will seek to tell the story of baseball's beginnings and explore not only the game's broadest origins, but also its development in local communities.
John Thorn, the Official Historian of Major League Baseball, serves as chairman.

David Block

An early baseball historian, author of "Baseball Before We Knew It: A Search for the Roots of the Game," and a member of the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR).

James Edward Brunson III

Assistant vice president for student affairs at Northern Illinois University and author of "The Early Image of Black Baseball: Race and Representation in the Popular Press, 1871-1890."

Adrian Burgos, Jr.

Professor of history at the University of Illinois; author of "Playing America's Game: Baseball, Latinos, and the Color Line" and "Cuban Star: How One Negro League Owner Changed the Face of Baseball"; a consultant to Ken Burns' "Baseball: The Tenth Inning"; and a member of the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR).

Ken Burns

Len Coleman

Len Coleman was voted the 14th president of the National League on March 1, 1994. He joined Major League Baseball in 1992 as executive director-market development. He received an undergraduate degree from Princeton University and earned two Masters degrees at Harvard.

Doris Kearns Goodwin

Presidential historian and Pulitzer Prize-winning author of "No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: The Home Front in World War II", "Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln", and "Wait Till Next Year: A Memoir."

Steve Hirdt

Executive vice president of the Elias Sports Bureau, the official statistician of Major League Baseball, and a member of the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR).

Jane Leavy

Former staff writer for the Washington Post; author of "Sandy Koufax: A Lefty's Legacy" and "The Last Boy: Mickey Mantle and The End of America's Childhood"; and a member of the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR).

Larry McCray

A researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who, since 2005, has coordinated "Project Protoball," a record of print references to baseball and parallel bat and ball games prior to 1860, and a member of the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR).

John Thorn

The Official Historian of Major League Baseball, will serve as chairman of the Baseball Origins Committee and also incorporate opportunities for public participation in the project, allowing the panel to hear the first baseball stories from individual fans and families.

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